Words: Eve Lamb. Image Kyle Barnes

BACKED by a scholarship from the Daylesford Foundation, Hepburn resident 19-year-old
Lucinda Lowe had the stress removed from her travel equation as she tackled a double
diploma course last year.
Lucinda had to travel multiple times during the week to complete her Diploma of Sport/Diploma of Leadership and Management through the Swinburne University of Technology and the Richmond
Football Club.
“I won the Daylesford Foundation scholarship last year and it covered all my Myki transportation costs,” Lucinda said.
“They even offered me more but I didn’t need it. It was amazing. It just took
such a load off my mind. It saved me about $40 to $50 each week which, for a uni
student, is huge.
“Doing the course was a full-on transition from year 12,” said Lucinda who had
completed her year 12 schooling at Daylesford Secondary College in 2021.
The keen local netballer and cricketer who plays for Hepburn not only completed
her double diploma, she was one of only four students who took out the program’s
excellence award as well.
“Doing the course has honestly been the best thing I ever could have done.”
Lucinda is also a keen swimmer, gym-goer and devoted Richmond Football Club
supporter.
Now, having completed her studies in style, she’s tackling some casual
employment opportunities while waiting to pounce when just the right position
comes up.
“I definitely want to do something in sport and now I’m just taking my time
to think about what direction to take next and earn a bit of money and explore my
calling. Leadership is also something I’m passionate about.”
Lucinda was very grateful for the assistance she received from the Daylesford Foundation.
“The Daylesford Foundation scholarship was so helpful, to not have to stress
about travel,” she said. “I would encourage others to take up the Daylesford
Foundation’s offer of help.”
Foundation Youth Scholarships coordinator Jo Van Son says the focus is very
much on helping young people fulfil their potential and helping young locals succeed
in pursuing further education.
“The idea of the scholarships is to support people to transition well from school
to further study,” Jo said.
“Last year we provided five scholarships and this year we’re providing seven.”
Jo says the Foundation’s scholarships are individually tailored to assist local young
people who have the desire to pursue studies.
“It might be with the cost of laptops or other study materials or with travel costs
or mentoring and accessing other supports that are out there and available to them
but which they otherwise may not know how to access,” she says.
“There is an application process and we meet with the young person. They need
to have an offer (of further study) or the desire for further study.”
The Foundation’s scope of support is varied and may also include essential foods, household goods, household maintenance, emergency vehicle repairs, medical appliances and computer hardware and software.
Assistance to cover the cost of school fees, school camps, excursions, apprenticeships, and other education-related activities is also available.

Words: Eve Lamb

Fancy a wild pine mushroom risotto? A crisp dandelion and wild brassica salad? Or an elderberry cocktail perhaps?

These are some of the sorts of wild food delicacies that may result as local teacher and experienced food forager Irina De Loche prepares to share her passion for enjoying the bounty of nature that’s out there just waiting to be gathered and relished.

Over the past three years, Irina has already become well known at the Creswick Neighbourhood Centre where she teaches yoga, dance and pilates. But later this month Irina is also facilitating the new Free Fresh Food Foraging workshop.

Humans are historically foragers and where the land and forests have not suffered the ravages of the modern world many cultures still forage on a daily basis, she says.

Much of the plant life in Australia is introduced and exotic species now outnumber indigenous ones. But if there’s one positive to take away from this it’s that many of them are edible and medicinally beneficial, and if you fancy the idea of gathering free fresh food, this workshop is probably for you.

“Before I moved to Ballarat seven years ago, I lived in Melbourne near the Merri Creek and I would often see the Greeks, Croatians and Lebanese ladies there gathering wild food along the creek – a lot of foods that many people just don’t know about but that are highly nutritious,” Irina says

A qualified teacher with plenty of French, German and Russian heritage, she has previously taught at Melbourne’s CERES School of Nature and Climate  and has completed a wild weeds course, complementing her long-held passion for the natural world and living sustainably with nature.

Those who get along to this month’s foraging  workshop can expect not just to learn a whole lot about the wild foods that are under our noses and that often go unappreciated as “weeds” but to also to learn a fair bit about the pleasures of “forest bathing” into the bargain.

“There are so many health benefits in just being in nature and letting your body be healed by the forest,” Irina says.

“I am going to be supplying notes on how to identify edible plants and I’m also hoping to give people some recipes.”

Actually learning how to I.D. the edible underappreciated wild plants that exist around us –“things like wild brassicas, nettles, sow thistle, dandelions, acorns, hawthorn berries and pine mushrooms” will be a main aim of the workshop.

Learning how to saviour  “weeds” and wild foods that go under the radar despite their considerable nutritional values is often largely about  knowing how to prepare them properly, and Irina plans to enlighten workshop participants with quite a bit of  know-how on this front.

She says the workshop will involve a walk through the landscape to teach participants how to identify the edible plants as they naturally appear growing in the environment.

“The Europeans have been using acorns for years and years…Stinging nettles are another amazing one, used for detoxing in Europe, and amazing in soup. You just need to know how to prepare them to remove the sting,” she says.

“Many of these plants are delicious and nutritious and so many have valuable medicinal qualities as well. I want people to be able to identify food that’s free.

“I’m also keen to wean people away from the idea of killing everything with weed killer, and to perhaps set aside a part of their own garden for these sorts of plants.”

The three-hour-long  afternoon Foraging for Free Fresh Food workshop is part of the new term two program of courses, workshops and activities currently on offer through the Creswick Neighbourhood Centre.

The workshop is set for Sunday May 21 from 12 to 3pm, but Irina says that if the weather is no good for foraging the date may change as she’s particularly keen to get people out in the environment, actively identifying the free fresh food that’s out there.

More information about the workshop and how to register to attend is available from the Creswick Neighbourhood Centre.

Daylesford, Creswick and Western brass bands will present Soundtrack of the Globe in Daylesford on
Saturday, May 20.
The three brass bands will take people on a cultural and geographical trip around the world, all from the
comfort of Daylesford Town Hall in Vincent Street.
The town hall doors open at 2.30pm and the concert starts at 3pm.
Cost is $10 for adults and $5 for concession. Tickets are available at the door. BYO drinks and nibbles.
Pictured, the Daylesford Brass Band, at a former Swiss & Italian Festa in Hepburn Springs

with Eve Lamb

HEPBURN Springs artist Lisa Gervasoni is renowned for her imposing abstract landscape works. As a child she was fascinated with geographical and street maps. Her passion for cartography persisted into adulthood informing her preoccupation with land and the many layers of value it holds. Today this abiding interest informs both her professional work as a strategic and town planner and the creation of her imposing art works, some of which are about to feature in her new exhibition, Reimagining our Cultural Landscapes, held from today, May 11 to June 25, at the Art Gallery of Ballarat.
Eve: What is your artistic style?
Lisa: Abstract landscape, predominantly aerial or aerial oblique viewpoint work with a Fauvist colour
palette and using paint or thread. I’ve always enjoyed art and I have a sister who’s an art teacher and a mother who’s a master decouper. Traditionally I’ve worked more in thread and photography, but I
went back to painting during lockdowns. I was inspired by Jackie Case and her book Flying Penguins to start painting again.
Eve: Who has influenced your work?
Lisa: Von Guerard. He painted so many places that are important to me. The Impressionists and the fauvists. Grace Cossington Smith, Sybil Craig, the Hermannsburg School, Fred Williams and Peter Tyndall.
Eve: What is your medium and subject matter of choice?
Lisa: A mix of acrylics on canvas or board, thread on linen. And landscapes. I’ve always had a close connection to Australian landscapes through family connections, as a student of geography and then as a heritage planner. People have strong connections to place. While places will change and evolve this change can cause discord within the community and break intergenerational connections to place. I saw this through my work and in our local community after the changes to Hepburn Mineral Springs
Reserve. People would be looking for the places they, or their parents, came to on their honeymoon or as children, and although these places still existed the place no longer held that connection through time. My exhibition is inspired by that idea. Some views remain. Others have completely changed but you can still see connections on close examination.
Eve: Do you work outside your arts practice?
Lisa: I work full-time outside the arts. I have qualifications in applied science (planning) and environmental studies and I’m into my fourth decade as a planner. As a child I loved the Melway. I knew all the maps so my family were not surprised when I became a planner. The cartographic symbolism in my work also stems from that way of seeing different elements or layers in a landscape. Over the last few years I’ve also
seen the failure of many professions, including my own, to understand farming and
farmland. Productive land is valued in the UN Sustainable Development Goals but too many people see it as vacant land where they can do anything without impact. That tension inspired one work in particular.
Eve: What are you working on at the moment in your current arts practice?
Lisa: I’m currently focused on getting everything ready for the exhibition in Backspace at the Art Gallery of Ballarat. I have several other works planned, both on canvas and in thread. One work that I didn’t complete for this exhibition I really want to start next. I invited a colleague to the exhibition and found out she has links to the subject. She was a stalwart through the months after Black Saturday and a
champion for better understanding of social license and agricultural impact

Eve: When you work in the studio do you like to play music and if so what is your
music of choice?
Lisa: I used to play and study music (piano, saxophone, voice, theory) so I have an eclectic taste in music – from Gregorian chant through to punk rock. Safer to say what I don’t listen to – Rod Stewart and Fleetwood Mac. I often have news radio or TV on as well.
Eve: What are your career highlights as an artist?
Lisa: I won the lovely Madi McCrystal’s Daylesford Small Art Prize many years ago (with an embroidery of the Savoia Hotel) and was a finalist in the Harden Art Prize last year. My photographs have been in several galleries as part of 40 works nationally selected by the ABC and one year one of my photographs was chosen as the managing director’s corporate Christmas card. One highlight is curating an exhibition at Warrnambool Art Gallery that looked at local people who shaped the city, or wider, from builders to Nobel Laureates and a lot in between.
Eve: What are the challenges for artists today?
Lisa: Well, I have a full-time job that helps pay for the equipment, and I think that is common to most. Most art needs time. A work that might challenge you initially can end up becoming a favourite when you spend the time to engage with it. I’m lucky to have a trained art teacher as a sister. She has no fear in challenging me to evolve or resolve.
Eve: And the main rewards?
Lisa: Art is an expression. It is a great way to start to switch off the analytical brain, but at the same time you often resolve issues while the other side of your brain is switched on. I think that is quite important for me. It helps deal with work that can be quite stressful but also keeps open those neural pathways that are looking at the big picture, at the connections in the detail and how it all fits together.

The Mount Players’ second production for 2023 is Buried Child written by Sam Shepard. It was first presented in 1978 and won the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for drama, launching Shepard to national fame as a playwright.
The play is an intense drama set in an old farm house, in mid-century Illinois. A
macabre look at an American Midwestern family with a dark, terrible secret. Heavily
atmospheric and challenging, the play will entrance its audience with questions of
morality and its take on the disintegration of the American dream.
Although dark in many respects, it is delivered with humour and pathos. There
is hope however, as the final moments of the play suggest salvation with a surprise
ending.
With a superb cast, brilliant set and one hell of a script, the audience will be taken
on an emotional journey under the experienced eye of director, Robert Wallace. This
is The Mount Players’ 2023 Victorian Drama League entry.
The season runs from tomorrow, Friday, May 12 to Sunday, May 28 with just nine performances. Bookings: www.themountplayers.com or 5426 1892.

ABC Statewide Drive presenter Nicole Chvastek is on leave but will return in six weeks, ABC
spokesperson John Woodward has told The Local.
Mr Woodward said the ABC Ballarat studios were being refurbished so the show was now coming out of
ABC’s Shepparton studios, hosted by Warwick Long.
“That arrangement will continue until the refurbishment work is complete, which is expected at the
end of June.”
On April 13, Mr Woodward told The Local the show had been temporarily replaced with Melbourne Drive
“due to operational reasons outside our control” but it would return with Ms Chvastek.
Mr Long, who hosted the ABC’s Victorian Country Hour, started in the Drive chair on Monday, May 1.
A change.org petition asking for the popular Malmsbury presenter’s return has more than 500
signatures, and a Facebook page, Fight for Nicole, is also up and running.
The petition says: “Nicole has been on our air waves for many years bringing relevant issues and topics to the forefront of public discussion.
“She tackles these issues with a passionate and balanced approach and has become a trusted
spokesperson for us all. She is irreplaceable.
“This axing is another example of regional Victoria not being adequately represented in the state arena.”
Words: Donna Kelly

Kyneton will show its support for the LGBTIQA+ community next week as it raises the rainbow flag to mark International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT) on Wednesday, May 17.
Organised by Macedon Ranges Shire Council and Sunbury and Cobaw
Community Health, the event is an important date in the calendar as Macedon
Ranges residents, businesses and community groups join people all over the world
to celebrate diversity and raise awareness of the ongoing discrimination faced by the
lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and intersex community.
There will be a free sausage sizzle and guest speakers including Macedon Ranges
Shire Council’s CEO Bernie O’Sullivan and Mayor Annette Death.
“IDAHOBIT is one of council’s key annual recognition days,” said Cr Death.
“I look forward to once again raising the rainbow flag this year, in a simple but clear
statement of our support for our LGBTIQA+ community and this year’s theme of
‘Together always: united in diversity’.”
The flag raising event takes place at noon at the Kyneton Mechanics Institute, 81
Mollison Street, Kyneton.
Details: Sunbury and Cobaw Community Health on 5421 1666 or email healthpromotion@scchc.org.au

DAYLESFORD’S Beth Whiting is heading to Hungary next month to
take part in the World Kettlebell Sport Federation championships.
Looking at the woman many people call “a pocket rocket”, there are plenty
of toned muscles and a very healthy glow from a strict workout regime. But it wasn’t
always that way. Eleven years ago, Beth was working with the Melbourne Festival and on
tour for six months of every year. With no fridge or pantry stocked with healthy food, and
always on the go, she found herself losing control of any food or fitness regime.
Beth used that moment to change her life around and rather than just find a diet,
she did a personal training course and started to eat well and work out. Still with the
Melbourne Festival, she took part in a boot camp at The Tan in Melbourne, worked out
on the stage of the Sidney Myer Music Bowl and toned up. It was fun however Beth
certainly never thought it would be the start of a career. But it was.
She moved to the Central Highlands to live with her now husband, Brett, and found
work at a gym where she was also approached by a few people to see if she was interested
in starting an early morning local boot camp. Victoria Park in Daylesford was the first
location, starting on the oval, eventually moving into the table tennis pavilion and finally
now running full-time fitness classes for all abilities and ages at Integrate Fitness, out of a
purpose-designed space off East Street with “an incredible community all keen to be the
best versions of themselves”.
It was during the building of her fitness business that kettlebells came along and life
changed again. Beth had always loved them and had been looking for something for “just
me”.
“As every mum knows you lose yourself a bit and working in the business meant
I didn’t have time for my own workouts and my mental health needed that. I did a
kettlebell coaching course in 2014 with my now coach Shannon Pigdon and then
basically stalked him until he agreed to train me. He lives in Albury and I go up there
every three months or so to do a session with him.
“In the first competition I ever saw, the competitors were lifting continuously for 30
minutes so I went home and wondered if I could do that, and I picked up a kettlebell
and did it. It turns out I can do that – and more.
“Shannon sent me a program that involved three sessions a week, and I am all about
being accountable, so since 2019 I have done those three sessions every week. And it was
about finding me – I was a mum running a business – kettlebell is my meditation, my
flow, my time. And I had found not only something I was good at, and enjoyed, I also
found the strength it brought into my life.”
Beth says being good at kettlebells is all about a combination of mental and physical
resilience and the ability to keep going, no matter how tough that going gets. In
competition, once you start, you never, ever put a kettlebell down. The kettlebell itself is
a hollow ball of iron with a handle made of iron, weighing from eight kilograms to 50kg.
They are all the same size with the same handle, just the weight and colour vary.
Competitions include single and double lifts and range from 10 minutes to half
marathons of 30 minutes and full marathons of 60 minutes. The competitor’s weight, the
weight of the kettlebell and repetitions completed all come into the winning equation.
Beth sometimes competes against people who weigh five kilos less than her, or 40kg more.
And after competing at the Australian Nationals in September last year she was offered a
place on the Australian team to compete in Hungary.
“I am excited and I can’t wait to experience being a part of the Australian Kettlebell
team with 10 other incredible athletes. We have a wonderful community and this is a
really good opportunity to be involved in that.”
Beth is the Girevoy Sport Australia treasurer and also among those working to have
the organisation recognised nationally, to gain some much-needed funding, with a dream
to one day have the sport in the Olympics.
Back home, she now trains five people in kettlebell at Integrate Fitness. “We have an
incredible lifting community in Daylesford. I love watching our athletes achieve things
they never dreamt possible. They inspire me every day. They are amazing people who all
do incredible things.
“We had wanted to call ourselves The Daylesford Swingers, but the name was already
taken – with a very different meaning,” she laughs.
“But I would love to get more of the community involved. We have two competitions
being held at Integrate Fitness on May 20 and July 15. Athletes will be competing from
Daylesford, Melbourne, Geelong and Albury. We’d love for people to come along to see
what the sport is all about.
“It’s not for everyone, throwing a kettlebell around, some people find it a bit scary, but
I love it and I love my kettlebells – they are affectionately known as my babies. And if you
don’t want to watch a competition, we train most Saturday mornings from 8am – contact
us to join a session.” Details: Beth at info@integratefitness.com.au

Words: Donna Kelly | Images: Kyle Barn

The owner of Daylesford Victory Vapes says the federal government decision to crack down on the sale of vapes will put him and his wife out of the family business they’ve run for a decade.
Steve Douglas says the business he and his wife Stacy Kilpatrick have run for the
past 10 years will have to put off staff and shut up shop as a result of the new rules
expected to come into force later this year.
The federal decision will see vapes heavily regulated and the importation of all
e-cigarettes will be strictly controlled under a federal government crackdown on the
smoking alternative. Non-prescription vapes will be banned from importation, and
the federal government will work with states and territories to close down the sale of
vapes in retail settings.
The tax on tobacco will also increase 5 per cent each year for the next three years,
as the government also seeks to curb cigarette smoking through higher costs.
Under new rules, vapes will only be sold in pharmacies and in “pharmaceuticallike” packaging, with certain flavours, colours and other ingredients banned, and the
concentration and volume of nicotine reduced.
“These are supposed to be pharmaceutical products,” Health Minister Mark
Butler told the National Press Club last week.
“They have to present that way – no more bubblegum flavours, pink unicorns or
vapes disguised as pens for kids to hide in pencil cases. Instead, we will have plain
packaging with plain flavours.” All single-use disposable vapes will also be banned.
However, the government will also make it easier for people to get a prescription
for “legitimate” therapeutic use, such as using vapes to help quit smoking.
And all doctors will be able to prescribe nicotine vapes to smokers looking to quit,
rather than smokers needing approval from the Therapeutic Goods Administration.
While many have welcomed the move as helping to avoid creating a new
generation of nicotine addicts who will go on to develop serious and costly health
problems, Mr Douglas believes it will drive sales underground.
“The black market will continue to flourish, the same one that’s selling chop-chop
here in town, while our market, the regulated market will be gone,” he said.
“We are age-restricted and we’ve never sold to a minor in the 10 years we’ve
operated. We are going to be shut down with no recourse whatsoever. We also have
stores in Ballarat and Cairns and this will mean 12 employees over our three shops are
going to be out of a job.
“It’s going to wipe us out. It’s going to completely shut down our 10-year-family
business. I’ve had locals in here in the last two days literally crying. The first one was
a 70-year-old retired nurse who we got off cigarettes eight years ago. She doesn’t want
to use tobacco.
“People are panicking because they don’t want to go back to smoking cigarettes.
This will mean many people will go back to cigarettes.”
Mr Douglas believes the crackdown is motivated by a concern to “balance the
budget” and to “make up for a shortfall in excise tax on tobacco”.
“The federal government normally make $16 billion a year on tobacco taxes but
this year they’ve only made $12 billion. This will balance the budget but at what
cost,” he said.
Cancer Council CEO Tanya Buchanan has praised the government’s move
describing it as an “historic shift toward ending the vaping epidemic”.
“Unlike smoking, we have a window of opportunity to take policy actions that
prevent the growing use of e-cigarettes,” Professor Buchanan said.
“With support from all levels of government, we can reverse the e-cigarette
epidemic and prevent history repeating itself for a new generation of Australians.”
Words: Eve Lamb | Image: Kyle Barnes

The Water Efficiency Labelling and Standards (WELS) team has recently launched a new online course to help developers, builders and plumbers save water, energy and lower the cost of their client’s utility bills.
 
It’s also hoped to help them stay up to date with their legal obligations under the Water Efficiency Labelling and Standards Act 2005.
 
This free course can be completed in 45 minutes and is available from waterrating.gov.au.

“This course was created for these industry professionals to understand the important role they can play in promoting water efficiency,” Matthew Dadswell, WELS Regulator said.
 
“We are working closely with industry bodies and vocational institutions to roll out this training to their members,” he said.
 
The WELS scheme aims to encourage more efficient domestic water use and reduce demand for drinking water in Australia. It does this by informing consumers about water efficiency at the point of sale through the WELS star rating label.
 
The scheme sets the water efficiency and labelling requirements for taps, showers, flow controllers, toilets, urinals, dishwashers and washing machines.
 
Over the past 18 years, the WELS scheme has been instrumental in reducing water demand in Australia and continues to deliver both water and energy savings.

Playing live at The Palais, Hepburn Springs this Friday evening, May 12, Sally Ford and the Idiomatics sing of life, love and lived experience.

This recently formed trio from Melbourne fuses the musical provenance of its members … latin, electronica, ska, jazz, brass band, pop and funk.

Patrick Cronin and Michael Havir provide a lush electro-acoustic backing to Sally Ford’s wryly observed lyrics. The expansive sonic palette of keyboards, samples and electronica is enhanced by trombone, saxophone, flute and even a bit of old-fashioned whistling. Original tunes and freshly interpreted classics come together in this richly imagined musical experience.

These musicians bring to the Idiomatics their collective legacy of leading or performing with bands such as the ARIA-winning Melbourne Ska Orchestra, the Spaghetti Western Orchestra, Texicali Rose, Yothu Yindi, Sally Ford and the Pachuco Playboys, Joe Camilleri’s Black Sorrows, Ska Vendors, Skazz and Frank Yamma.

They play The Palais from 6pm this Friday.

National Reconciliation Week (27 May-3 June) is a time for all Australians to learn about our shared histories, cultures, and achievements, and to explore how each of us can contribute to achieving reconciliation in Australia.

The 2023 theme is “Be a voice for generations”, and it encourages all Australians to be a voice for reconciliation in tangible ways in our everyday lives.

This year, Bendigo Library will again host a Welcome to Country and Smoking ceremony by Elders from the Dja Dja Wurrung. To be followed by two movie screenings and various craft activities. And art critic, academic, and researcher Tyson Yunkaporta will join participants online to discuss his book Sand Talk: How Indigenous thinking can save the world.

The library says everyone is welcome to join them for this thought-provoking session.

Central Highlands Water (CHW) has donated 100% of funds raised through the sale of Choose Tap reusable stainless-steel bottles to its Community Water Bottle Partner, Ballarat and District Aboriginal Cooperative (BADAC).  

CHW Managing Director, Jeff Haydon met with BADAC Chief Executive Officer, Karen Heap and Youth Engagement Officer, Nikki Bell, recently to present the donation of $14,795. The donation was raised through water bottle sales at the 2023 Ballarat Begonia Festival. 

CHW says it’s proud to partner with BADAC to support their valuable services for the local Aboriginal community. This year’s donation is CHW’s largest with proceeds going directly to BADAC’s children and youth programs. 

CHW thanked everyone in the community who visited its site at the Begonia Festival and purchased a bottle in support of BADAC’s work.

The donation will support Aboriginal children and youth to enjoy ‘on Country’ activities they otherwise would have little or no access to, such as Swim with Dolphins in Queenscliff and Wildlife Wonders at the Otway Conservation Ecology Centre.

The Community Water Bottle partnership is part of CHW’s community support programs, which provide financial and in-kind assistance to local charities, community and sporting groups and not-for-profits across the Central Highlands region. Through the partnership CHW aims to minimise single-use water bottle purchases, raise funds for local organisations that serve the region, promote safe drinking water and build important community partnerships.  

The water authority’s Choose Tap reusable water bottles are also available from our Learmonth Road and Maryborough offices for $10 each. The bottles are available in a range of styles, including the brand-new Vivid range in rose gold, iced silver and rainbow gloss.

Young families in Hepburn Shire and surrounds are being invited to join in the fun of National Simultaneous Storytime – Australia’s biggest storytelling session this month with events set for multiple branches of the Goldfields Libraries group.

The same book will be read across Australia and New Zealand at the same time.

This year participants are getting set to simultaneously read Rebecca Young and Heath McKenzie’s The Speedy Sloth, an inspiring story to celebrate all winners…especially those who don’t come first.

It all happens on Wednesday 24 May 24 at 11am with simultaneous storytelling taking places at branches in Bendigo, Boort, Castlemaine, Elmore, Gisborne (10.30am), Kangaroo Flat, Kyneton and Woodend.

May 17 is the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, Interphobia & Transphobia (IDAHOBIT). It celebrates LGBTQIAA+ people globally and raises awareness for the work still needed to combat discrimination.

To celebrate, library agencies that are part of the Goldfields Libraries group at Wedderburn, Tarnagulla and Pyramid Hill will run some fun rainbow dishcloth crafting sessions, and Castlemaine Library will host author and photographer Mia Mala McDonald and launch the second series of the Pride Across the Ages podcast.

The library is also encourage patrons to check out its Meet the Family playlist on Youtube. The series was created in partnership with local LGBTQIAA+ youth who wanted to meet and understand the lived experiences of community members from other generations. The videos touch on topics including CisHet norms, the word ‘queer’, proud moments, and what still needs to be done to action change for future generations. The results are not only illuminating; they’ll help you see the world through entirely different eyes.